Beginnings, Middles and Ends
by WhisperElmwood
Summary: A three part short story about the lives of Kyle and Kenny. All things have a pattern, Kenny's life isn't any different. KennyKyle
1. Beginnings

**Beginnings**

_origin; source; first cause  
the initial stage or part of anything_

The first time it happened, Kenny was four and his dad - drunk - dropped him.

The McCormick's were holding a house party - Kenny forgets if it was for anything in particular, though it probably wasn't - and his dad had popped upstairs with some of the guys. They were messing about in the main bedroom. Kenny couldn't sleep, he was having nightmares again and the noise kept waking him, so he went to see what his dad was up to.

He'd gotten a hug for his troubles (something he loved, back then, before...) and his dad had begun swinging him around, playing, making him laugh in his high, childish voice.

But Dad was drunk and Kenny was small - even for four - and before he knew it, Kenny was out the window, gone.

Dead for the first time.

Kyle had been there, with his parents - this was before the big fallout - and he saw everything.

He had been sitting on the porch, trying to get away from the noise, smell and crush of adult bodies. He didn't like having to avoid feet and knees. He'd looked up when he heard the giggling, saw Kenny and his dad through the upstairs window.

He'd watched, wide eyed and petrified, as Kenny came through the window, small body twisting in the air, landing with a sick-inducing crunch on the hard, frozen, gravel strewn ground.

He hadn't understood at first, why Kenny wasn't moving.

Looking around, worried, he had slipped from the porch and sidled up to his young friend.

"Kenny?" He had asked, quietly.

He had knelt down and shaken Kenny's shoulder, gently. When there was no response, he had tried again, a little harder.

When there was still no response, Kyle's eyes had begun to prickle. The longer Kenny was quiet, still, the more worried Kyle had become, tears streaking down his pale cheeks.

And then, Kenny had begun to fade. 

Kyle had sat back in horror, his four year old mind unable to make sense of what was happening. After only a few heartbeats, Kenny had disappeared completely, leaving Kyle sitting on the frozen ground, alone.

He had sat there for a long time before a new, quiet noise, made him jump. He had looked up, and there was Kenny, standing right where he had disappeared from, sniffling, with a strange look on his face.

Kyle had thought he looked confused, scared and so, so little.

They had blinked at each other and then both burst into tears, jumping together and clinging to one another over their shared secret.

That had been the first time - and they never told anyone.

TBC


	2. Middles

**Middles**

_intervening between an earlier and later period of time;  
being an intermediate part of a sequence or series; the middle years_

Kyle looked up, unsurprised, as Kenny faded into view before him, between the sofa and the TV.

"What happened this time?"

Kenny stretched, flexing new muscles, cracking new joints, learning the feel of this newly created body. This was something he always did, now that they had reached their mid-forties; it helped keep him limber.

"Car accident. Some idiot learner driver hit pavement and forgot where the brakes were - hit accelerate, then me."

Kyle shivered slightly. Kenny was very matter of fact about his deaths. Always had been of course, but now he added little commentaries on them and the occasional bit of sarcasm.

Thankfully, Kenny's deaths were less frequent now - as he had aged, so had the deaths lessened, becoming more and more infrequent. They still didn't know whether it was a side effect of his ageing, or whether it was because Kenny was more observant of the dangers. It was something they discussed now and then.

Kenny dropped down next to him, making the sofa bounce gently. He had been on his way home from work anyway. Kyle felt his partner relax by degrees next to him. He sat back and leaned against him, turning the volume of the TV up a few notches.

The news came on and there was the accident. Kenny shifted.

A reporter extolled the virtues of wearing a seatbelt for a bit, then explained that though a few people had been hurt, no-one had died - not even the driver, when she used a tree in place of brakes. Footage of the accident came on screen, showing the car ploughing into the sidewalk, and Kyle jumped, gasped, as he saw Kenny run down, his body flung to one side.

"_No deaths_? Why do they never _see_ you, Kenny?"

Kenny simply shook his head and pulled him close. It was an old conversation - they had gone over and over it together. No-one ever noticed when Kenny died, even if it happened right in front of them. No one apart from himself and Stan and Eric. But Eric had never cared, almost always ignoring it, and Stan was gone; he had married, got a job and left the State.

So Kyle was left to deal with it on his own. Sometimes he felt like he was going mad, seeing things no-one else could.

But then, like now, he would wind his fingers through Kenny's grey speckled, blond hair and press their lips together - seeking and finding the comfort he needed in the physical.

The scratch of Kenny's beard against his own smooth skin, the hard body pressed against his own. It would take his thoughts away from what Kenny went through.

Eventually, lying together, with Kenny buried deep inside him, he would feel normal again. He would pull the blond down for a kiss, slow and deep and he would be able to forget the way that the universe was so unfair.

Later, lying tangled together in the bed-sheets, he would listen to Kenny's breathing, taking comfort in the knowledge that, here and now, Kenny was alive and his.

Really his. Really there.

As always, he falls asleep still wrapped around his partner, wishing for the day when Kenny never has to die again. He silently promises himself that he will be there, that he will stay for him, stay and hold his hand at his Last Death, watch over him as he slips into sleep everlasting.

He will keep an eye on his love, make sure his body stays and that he does not come back.

Then and only then, will he allow himself to cry and follow him.

Only then.

TBC


	3. Endings

**Endings**

_a conclusion or termination  
a concluding part; a finale_

Kenny was scared.

He was dieing. He knew it. He could feel it in his bones. And he was frightened of what it meant.

He was ninety-five years old, grey, gnarled and alone. So alone.

Kyle had passed on almost two weeks ago, just shy of his ninety-sixth birthday. Kenny had celebrated it for him, alone, tears on his face as he blew out the single candle; looking at the photograph of them together, taken almost forty years before - when they had finally, legally, been allowed to marry.

In the photo, they were both wearing white suits, black ties, their hair styled _just so_. 

Stan and his family had attended, of course, all smiles and laughter.

Cartman, by then, had already been dead 13 years - a heart attack at forty.

Stan was gone now too, though, two years ago.

Kenny was the last of them. The boys from South Park.

It made him laugh to think of it. Him. Kenny. The boy who repeatedly cheated death. Now a wizened old man, alone and scared at last.

He went about his days feeling the ache in his bones, the rasp in his lungs, dragging the IV along behind him.

Kenny was in a care home; he and Kyle had lived here together, in a twin apartment, for the past five years. They had no children, no grandchildren, who could look after them in their old age. They had been prepared and secured the apartment a decade ago.

But they hadn't prepared for this. For Kyle going first and leaving Kenny alone, to face his Last Death without his support, his love, his _understanding_.

What would happen if he came back?

What would happen if he _kept _coming back? Living forever in an increasingly withered body?

Kenny had been able to face these questions when his Kyle had been with him. But now?

He was scared.

Painstakingly slowly, he changed into his pyjamas and lowered himself into his bed. As he tucked the duvet around his body, he looked over at Kyle's empty, neat bed. Felt a pang in his chest.

Loneliness. That was the worst part. With his Kyle gone, he was so lonely.

He reached up, switched the lamp off. Told the computer, gruffly, to awaken him at seven ay emm and then lay back.

He lay watching the stars through the skylight, for what felt like hours, listening to his own rasping breaths, the low rattle of his chest, the soft, soft sound of the IV dripping.

He knew it would be soon. He missed his Kyle too much.

Put simply, there was nothing left for him here, just the nurses and the silent-unless-spoken-too computers.

Why should he stay?

The only thing holding him back now, was the almost crippling fear that he would come back and keep coming back, never to rest, for eternity.

He closed his eyes, thought of his Kyle.

There was the possibility that he would go wherever Kyle had gone.

That was a comforting thought.

In the silence of the apartment, a light began to flicker on the view screen, signalling an alert to the nurses.

Kenny's breathing slowed, his face slackened - first in sleep - and then, almost an hour later, he took his last breath, released it and passed away.

----

When he opened his eyes, there was his Kyle.

He was tiny, no more than four in appearance, and his face was streaked with tears.

For a moment, Kenny had no idea where he was. Then he looked up and behind Kyle and saw his parent's old home. _His _old home.

This was where his First Death had happened.

He sniffled and his Kyle jumped, looked up at him, surprise in his features. They stared at each other for a moment and then burst into tears, throwing themselves at each other, clinging to one another.

And as he held his Kyle with a vice-like grip, happy beyond all else that he could hold his Kyle again, the memories of adulthood began to fade. 

Kenny was once again a four year old boy, holding on to the one thing in his existence that was constant.

END.


End file.
